On view at the UH Art Gallery September 21 through October 31, 2008, will be a special exhibition, Writing with Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities. Angela Sheng, Assistant Professor of Chinese Art History at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is the curator of the exhibition. Admission is free to the public. This exhibition will feature over 300 objects from the most inclusive collection of Southwest Chinese ethnic minority costumes in the world. Writing with Thread will showcase the finest and rarest costumes from 16 ethnic groups and nearly 100 subgroups and will explore the meanings associated with the production and use of indigenous clothing. In societies without written languages, traditions and customs are orally passed from generation to generation. However, the textile arts, largely practiced by women, provide tangible evidence of a group's history, myths and legends. The signs and patterns woven or embroidered in their clothing and the ceremonial and ritual use of textiles are often replicated in the accompanying silver ornaments made by men. (For more information about Writing with Thread, visit www.hawaii.edu/artgallery.) An international colloquium themed around this exhibition will precede the symposium.

Further to my July 2007 post above, I was reminded yesterday by Steven Frost of the proposed catalogue. I emailed Hawaii to try and find out more details on the publication date and how to order it. I received a response directly back as follows:

Quote:

"Thank you for your interest in Writing with Thread. Unfortunately we are running behind getting the catalogue published and still don't know the price of it. We are still trying to get all the information out of Taiwan. 244 pages are already designed and it is spectacular. It will be over 320 pages. I will put your request on file and let you know as we go to press.

Aloha,Tom KlobeDirector EmeritusUniveristy of Hawaii Art Gallery"

So, a delay but it sounds as if the final publication will be worth waiting for! As soon as I have any further information I will post it here. Just to remind you all , you can get a taster of the catalogue by accessing the information link at http://www.hawaii.edu/artgallery/writin ... index.html and clicking on the bullet points to the bottom left of the page. Unfortunately I can't make the links live in my attachment of the photo above.

I am not sure that I agree with all the comment on the techniques employed on the costumes. This reflects an informal review of the exhibit which I received from someone very experienced on the Miao and their costume who visited the exhibit. They commented that the textiles (and jewellery) were stunning but the captions were very disappointing indeed and seemed to have been put together by a team of people at U of Hawaii and were not necessarily accurate.

I haven't heard anything back from the University of Hawai Art Gallery about the book BUT Steven Frost spotted that it was available on the Chazen Museum of Art bookshop on-line http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/shop/books.asp at the University of Wisconsin.

I have ordered 'Writing with Thread' and another book. The staff at the Chazen Museum have been very helpful indeed and also have a neat way of dealing with international postage.

Forum member Ann Goodman (whose 'forum secretary' I have become ) Has emailed into me a report on the exhibit in Santa Fe mentioned by Susan Stem above. (She also has a very nice comment about the forum which I hope you will forgive me for including in this post ).

Quote:

The exhibit, "Writing with Thread" was terrific. Most of the clothing was displayed on three dimensional mannikins which makes an enormous difference for the viewer And the way the mannikins were set up in the space of the exhibition hall was very creative. Instead of being lined up in cabinets, the display filled the entire gallery, which is large and the viewer could walk around each group to see both front and back. I do think that it is one of the best displayed exhibitions that I have seen. As for the clothes, themselves, most were very fine. I couldn't have asked for more. And there was a wide variety of ethnic groups represented; many Miao, Buyi, Zhuang, Yi, Tujia, Maonan, Li, Yao. The exhibition was very comprehensive. I thought the catalog was definitely worth the $50 which it cost. I believe all of the objects on display are in the catalog and many of the attributions are informative. There is even a Dongjia baby carrier correctly identified, as we learned from Andrew Dudley (see Andrew's post http://www.tribaltextiles.info/communit ... php?t=1067 of Baby Carrier 2 on The Forum on October 18, 2007 and compare it with the DongJia carrier on p. 217 of the "Writing with Thread" catalog. The two carriers are almost identical. The "Thread" carrier is dated as late 19th century from Majiang County, Guizhou).

I have learned so much from The Forum which I have been able to apply in evaluating the wonderful "Writing with Thread" exhibition in Santa Fe.All the best to you,Ann

I visited Pam Nadjowski at her booth at the Travelers Market in a large shopping mall just outside of Santa Fe. I was in a rush for I was with my husband and granddaughter who are not consumed by textiles the way I am. But I bought a very lovely old Hani jacket and matching puttees from Pam. At another booth I saw a really nice pair of Li earrings which I bought. The dealer said they were new, but they look old to me. I wonder if it really matters if the workmanship is good and the piece is striking. I am impressed with the quality of the new pieces coming out, if these earrings are representative. I will attach photos here of both purchases and urge members of The Forum to try to get to Santa Fe to see the show "Writing with Thread" and visit Pam Nadjowski and the Travellers Market. The Market reminds me of a high ceilinged Turkish bazaar. Santa Fe is a beautiful part of the U.S. and worth a detour. It is not easy to get to but textile lovers will really appreciate the museums and shops.

I hope that you will also forgive the 'tribal textile shopping' related final paragraph and plug for forum member Pam Nadjowski but as she is supportive and generous with her pieces and knowledge I don't feel at all guilty!!!

I am very pleased to report that the University of Hawaii Art Gallery, the publishers of Writing with Thread, have given us permission to post images from 'Writing with Thread' as part of our forum discussions. I have promised that we will give proper attribution for each photo posted from the book. I am very grateful to the Director of UHAG, Tom Kobe, for all the trouble that he has taken over the granting of this permission and for giving us the OK.

I strongly recommend the catalog - in addition to wonderful textiles and very interesting text - in English! - there is a map showing tribal groups and the names and locations of towns, which is invaluable if you want to travel beyond the more heavily touristed towns of Guizhou

I would really like to order this book, but I have no idea how to. I went to this site:
http://www.hawaii.edu/artgallery/writin ... etails.htmBut it just tells the address of where to mail your check and the price of the catalogue. So is that all you'd have to do to order a copy? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I usually order with a credit card, and this is something new for me.

I actually ordered my book from the Chazen Museum of Art bookshop on-line http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/shop/books.asp at the University of Wisconsin. (The special 'Writing with Thread' exhibit of which this is a catalogue was staged there between Hawaii and its current venue, Santa Fe.)

I found them very helpful indeed and was able to pay by credit card and my book arrived safely. As I am outside the US I needed to pay additional postage and they had a neat way of doing this by informing me of the additional cost and advising me to pay it separately by using a 'gift' order. You soon get into email correspondence with the (three I think) helpful staff who deal with the on-line orders.

For those of you like myself who managed to acquire the beautiful book/catalogue of the 'Writing with Threads' exhibition you may be interested in the video lecture by Tom Klobe available on DVD: 'Exhibition Planning and Design: Writing with Thread'. It is also is available as a one hour video on YouTube and I am very grateful to Ann Goodman for sharing the link with me. I have embedded the video below. There are some lovely close-up shots of the textiles as well as film clips from minority villages in SW China which Tom Klobe visited with the collector when the exhibition was in the very early planning stages.

Tom Klobe, former director of the University of Hawaii Art Gallery (1977-2006), introduces crucial elements of a successfully designed exhibition. For his case study, he uses the development of Writing with Thread, an exhibition of traditional textiles from ethnic minorities in southwest China. Mr. Klobe begins by describing his collaborative research with Huang Yin Feng, director of the Evergrand Art Museum in Taiwan, and a team of scholars and exhibition specialists, and their travels to several Chinese villages. As he walks us through the conceptual and physical development of the exhibition, Mr. Klobe discusses thematic concepts, spatial arrangements of objects, color choices, lighting effects, selection of mannequins, construction of specialized stands and bases, and the writing of signage and labels. Viewers will enjoy a rare glimpse of the "behind the scenes" process and the students and volunteers who helped create this stunning exhibition of embroidered clothing and silver jewelry from Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi Autonomous Region, and Hainan Island. This lecture is an invaluable resource for designing exhibitions on a range of topics.

Thank you Pamela for working out the inclusion of videos onto the forum! This is a real asset and will no doubt help the textiles to come to life. This particular video was quite interesting and tho it was about a major museum exhibition, there are useful ideas for displaying textiles in the home. It also really helps us appreciate the thought and work involved in creating and executing exhibitions. Kudos!

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